We were going to look for ghosts of kings and dukes and queens; and like ghosts ourselves, we stepped from moonlit shores into pools of shadow, and back to moonlit shores again; past the golden Arch of Triumph, which Stanislas built in honour of his daughter's marriage with Louis XV; through the Carrière, where the tops of tall copper-beeches caught the light with dull red gleams, like the glow of a carbuncle; past the sleeping palace of Stanislas, into the old "nursery garden" of the Pepinière, to the sombre Porte de la Craffe whose two huge, pointed towers and great wall guard the old town of Duke René II.
There we stopped, because of all places this dark corner was the place for Nancy's noblest ghost to walk, René the Romantic, friend of Americo Vespucius when Americo needed friends; René the painter, whose pictures still adorn old churches of Provence, where he was once a captive: René, whose memory never dies in Nancy, though his body died 500 years ago.
What if he should rise from his tomb in the church of the Cordeliers, or come down off his little bronze horse in the Place St. Epvre as ghosts may by moonlight, to walk with his fair wife Isabella through the huddled streets of the old town, gazing at the wreckage made by the greatest war of history? What would he think of civilization, he who held his dukedom against the star warrior of the century, Charles the Bold? War was lawless enough in his day. When avenging a chancellor's murder, the Nancians hanged 100 Burgundian officers on a church tower for the besiegers outside the city wall to see. But the "noble Gauls" whom Julius Cæsar called "knights of chivalry," would have drawn the line then at showering bombs from the bay on women and children. We fancied, Brian and I, that after a walk round Nancy René and Isabella would retire, sadder and wiser ghosts, content to have finished their lives in gentler times than ours. Back into the shadows might they fade, to sleep again, and take up their old dream where the noise of twentieth-century shrapnel had snapped its thread. Their best dream must be, we thought, of their battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold on his black war-horse, surrounded by Burgundian barons in armour, shouting, and waving their banners with standards of ivory and gold; Charles of the dark locks, and brilliant eyes which all men feared and some women loved; Charles laughing with joy in the chance of open battle at last, utterly confident of its end, because the young duke—once his prisoner—had reinforced a small army with mercenaries, Swiss and Alsatians. At most René had 15,000 soldiers, and Charles believed his equal band of Burgundians worth ten times the paid northerners, as man to man.
From the church tower where Charles's men had hung—where St. Epvre stands now—René could see the enemy troops assembling, headed by the Duke of Burgundy, in his glittering helmet adorned with its device of an open-jawed lion. He could even see the gorgeous tent whose tapestried magnificence spies had reported (a magnificence owned by Nancy's museum in our day!), and there seemed to his eyes no end to the defile of spears, of strange engines for scaling walls, and glittering battle-axes. One last prayer, a blessing by the pale priest, and young René's own turn to lead had come—a slight adversary for great Charles, but with a heart as bold! The trumpet blast of La Rivière, sounding the charge of Lorraine, went to his head like wine. He laughed when Herter's mountain men began to sing "Le taureau d'Uri" and "La vache d'Unterwald," to remind the proud Burgundian of his defeats at Granson and Morat. Then came the crash of armour against armour, blade against blade, and the day ended for Nancy according to René's prayers. The southerners fled and died; and two days later, René was gazing down at the drowned body of Charles the Bold, dragged out of a pond. Yes, a good dream for ghosts of the chivalrous age to retire into, and shut the door! But for us, in our throbbing flesh and blood, this present was worth suffering in for the glory of the future.
There were other ghosts to meet in Nancy's old town of narrow streets where moonlight trickled in a narrow rill. Old, old ghosts, far older than the town as we saw it: Odebric of the eleventh century, who owned the strongest castle in France and the most beautiful wife, and fought the bishops of Metz and Treves together, because they did not approve of the lady; Henri VI of England riding through the walled city with his bride, Marguerite, by his side: ghostly funeral processions of dead dukes, whose strange, Oriental obsequies were famed throughout the world; younger and more splendid ghosts: Louis XIII and Richelieu entering in triumph when France had fought and won Lorraine, only to give it back by bargaining later; ghosts of stout German generals who, in 1871, had "bled the town white"; but greater than all ghosts, the noble reality of Foch and Castlenau, who saved Nancy in 1914, on the heights of La Grande Couronne.
As we walked back to the new town, dazed a little by our deep plunge into the centuries, I heard my name called from across the street. "Miss O'Malley—wait, please! It's Julian O'Farrell. Have you seen my sister?"
Brian and I stopped short, and O'Farrell joined us, panting and out of breath. "She's not with you?" he exclaimed. "I hoped she would be. I've been searching everywhere—she wasn't in the hotel when I got home, and it's close to midnight."
CHAPTER XIII
I felt unsympathetic, and wouldn't have cared if Miss Dierdre O'Farrell had flown off on a broomstick, or been kidnapped by a German aviator. My heart, however, was sure that nothing had happened and I suspected that her brother had trumped up an excuse to join us. It vexed me that Brian should show concern. If only he knew how the girl had looked at him a few hours ago!